On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 08:23 -0500, Matt Pobursky wrote:
> Virtually *every* U.S. Government document I've seen citing Federal Tax
> Rates NEVER include Social Security or Medicare "contributions". That's
> right, the government calls them "contributions" vs. a tax, therefore they
> are not a tax... ;-)
> 
> Of course every employer or self-employed person like myself is required by
> the government to withold/pay them so to me it walks like a duck and quacks
> like a duck.
> 
> If you add the additional 13-15% tax burden onto the ~25% base federal tax
> rate, all of a sudden the U.S. federal tax rate doesn't look so good.

Absolutely. Here in Ontario, Canada medical is included in the taxes, so
we don't see it, except of course for an additional "health tax" that
the latest government tacked on. Aside from that though, our Canada
pension plan is not counted as part of the "taxes", so contributions
there wouldn't be included, nor the employment insurance premiums we all
have to pay for.

Then there's sales tax, property taxes, alcohol taxes, petrol taxes,
etc.

It's one of those things that VERY hard to compare since where you "draw
the line" is up for debate.

Just like using the exchange rate to compare the power of a currency,
using the federal taxes rates to compare tax load is complete rubbish
IMHO. TTYL

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